How do I make document management between Office for Mac, Google Workspace and my Mac easier?

If you can describe the experience you are facing in more detail, it might be easier to give you a more concise answer to the specific difficulty that you are facing.

There are many ways to send files via email nowadays, compared to just adding an attachment many years ago.

Some organizations add additional safeguards to their documents too, ensuring that it only reaches the correct people - which adds additional layers of verification. We call this IRM or Information Rights Management.

For me the easiest would be to download a copy when possible, so I can retrieve it later without going through the whole trouble.

Do share so we can compare experiences?

Warm Regards

Hi @Alex Brunel

Based on your description, I understand that you are using Office and Outlook on a Mac together with Google Workspace. However, documents received through Outlook are difficult to manage because they appear to be stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. You would prefer to manage these files through Finder or Google Drive instead of relying on Microsoft’s cloud storage.

Before suggesting the most appropriate solution, could you please clarify the following?

• Are the documents included as regular file attachments, such as Word, Excel, or PDF files?
• Or are they provided as sharing links to files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint?
• Could you describe in more detail what happens when you try to open, download, save, or move the documents?

These two scenarios work differently.

-If the email contains a regular file attachment

You should be able to save a separate copy directly to your Mac. Office for Mac allows documents to be saved to a local folder rather than requiring them to remain in an online location. A simple workflow would be:

1. Download or open the attachment from Outlook.
2. In Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, select File > Save As.
3. Select On My Mac.
4. Choose a local folder in Finder.
5. Save and manage the new copy from that location.

If you have Google Drive for desktop installed, its folder should also appear in Finder. You can therefore select your Google Drive folder as the save location. This is a practical workflow rather than a specific Outlook or Office setting.

-If the email contains a OneDrive or SharePoint sharing link

In this situation, the email does not contain an independent copy of the document. It contains a link to the original file stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. Your ability to open, download, edit, or save the file depends on the permissions granted by the file owner and any policies applied by the organisation. If downloading or saving a copy is permitted:

1. Open the document.
2. Select File > Save As.
3. Select On My Mac.
4. Choose a folder in Finder or your Google Drive folder.
5. Save the copy.

Please note that the copy saved on your Mac or in Google Drive will be separate from the original cloud file. Changes made to your copy will not automatically update the original document in OneDrive or SharePoint. If the option to download or save a copy is unavailable, the file owner or an organisational policy may be preventing that action. In that case, you may need to ask the sender to send the document as a regular file attachment, or grant you permission to download or save a copy.

If your Mac or account is managed by an organisation, company policies may restrict where business documents can be copied or stored. In that case, please check with your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administrator before moving organisational files between storage platforms.

However, could you provide a little more detail about your specific scenario, particularly whether the documents arrive as attachments or sharing links and what you see when you try to save them? That information will help narrow down the correct solution.